A Letter to Barnes

Dear Mr. Barnes,

I’m a Bryn Mawr student and our class visited your museum last month. I appreciate the difference your Barnes’ Foundation has made from other normal museums, but I have some doubts about the purpose of the museum you set up.

When I went in the museum, I felt the distinctive style you made. You filled the place with all the paintings crowded on the walls, and they do not even have any name tags nearby. I liked the style of building, which was later revealed as the reform of your own house. It’s an inviting place, with all the wood furniture and small rooms. I went to New York’s Museum of Modern Art twice and saw many of the world-known pieces there, but the place seems more like a tourist place than yours. Barnes Foundation did renew my impression for museums, and it’s also an art piece itself. I admire its inversion of former interpretation of art, but when I hear your idea, or critiques of former museums, that they are not presenting art in proper forms. And the purpose of setting up Barnes Foundation was to prevent your own collection to join one of those museums you disliked.

Sorry I had to upload them seperatly my computer is running slowly..

Haha, Everglade, r u taking a picture of me? 么么哒！

I remember the very first time when I was in Philly, it was snowing very heavily, and I wrote that in my first paper for ESEM. I am very happy that the last trip ends in snow too. Starting with snow and ends with snow, that is lovely. I live in the south of China, I have seen snow in my hometown twice for eighteen years, and every time makes me scream. I didn't really have any plans for the last trip, so I ended up lingering around on the streets. I don't know why but snow gives me a feeling of warm. All is covered in white, and there are Christmas lights in many stores. It is like new year. I grabbed some snow and tried to make snow ball, but I didn't wear gloves, so I gave it up. I took a lot of photos till my hands were frozen. I would say it was really a tough walking, but I like it. When it snows, I always want to tell some one else it snows. It is snowing now:) 

 “Would you please turn on the light?” That’s what I first thought when looking at this painting, because the general appearance of this painting is very dark. The left side is darker than the right side, so dark that you can clearly see the tiny cracks on the painting due to it is very old. A woman is bending her back, drawing water from the urn. The light part on her apron makes her apron adds some three-dimension effect, and also makes it seem so heavy. The loose clothe and the creases on it make her clothes seem worn. The white cloth on her head covers her eyes, but it seems that she is looking at the bucket on the floor, tiredly. The light comes from the open door. There stands a woman, with something in her hand. I couldn’t see it clearly. I stepped back, tiptoed, stepped forward, and crouched: no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get what is in her hand. It seems long, probably a broom. There is a little child next to her. Her fingers are thick— she probably do a lot of chores every day. She looks like a servant, not hostess of a poor family, but servant, because the woman at the door dresses the same as her. Everything looks daily: the brooms, the buckets, even the women. Everything seems routine: the women may do it repeatedly, every day.

In order to read my experience of The Barnes Foundation as a piece of artwork through the lens of Barnes’s ideology, I can consider the time, access system, colors, architecture, people and artwork found in the building. I am thinking of what the space invites me to think as a piece of artwork in itself.           

These are a few photos of my play in the snow by the St. Stephens Church.
Most are of the treble clef I traced, and then one is my stage name, "fenceless," signed in the snow.
I'm short and so I couldn't get a solid shot of the entire images, but they should be relatively recognisable.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 027

Monday, December 9th, 2013

The Artist Barnes

Everybody in Philadelphia seems to have heard of the Barnes Foundation. It created quite a stir when it was moved, expressly against the wishes of its founder, from Lower Merion to Philadelphia, turning in the process from an educational institution to an art museum.

Albert Barnes had a specific vision for his art. He arranged it in his home, paintings, pieces of metalwork, furniture and more, according to design themes such as shape and color. He made his home into a school, a place to study art without what he considered the useless factoids of artist, date, and stylistic period, taking from art only what it presented to the viewer. He did not want it open to the public for more than a couple of days a week, nor used for parties, galas, and the like.

Due to corruption, personal grievances, and mismanagement of money, the Barnes is now open to the public every day, with spaces for events, and even pamphlets and audio tours that tell the visitor about the paintings. The only remaining vestige of Barnes’ original vision is the arrangement of the paintings. Curators of the Barnes insisted that they would stay true to Barnes’ displays, possibly in an attempt to please outraged protestors.

Why Barnes’ displays, and not his limitations on who viewed them, how, and where? Was the art arrangement so much more important than anything else?